Todd May has been named director of NASA‘s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
The space agency said Tuesday May will be in charge of the $2.5 billion Marshall center and its 6,000 civil service and contractor employees who handle human spaceflight, science and technology missions.
“Todd’s experience and leadership have been invaluable to the agency, especially as we have embarked on designing, building and testing the Space Launch System, a critical part of NASA’s journey to Mars,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden.
May has been responsible for the flight center since being appointed as the acting director after the retirement of Patrick Scheuermann in November 2015.
Prior to his current post, May served as the deputy director of Marshall beginning August 2015 and led the Space Launch System since it started in 2011.
May started at NASA in Marshall’s materials and processes laboratory in 1991 and in 1994 became deputy program manager of the Russian integration office in the International Space Station Program of NASA’s Johnson Space Center.
He had his bachelor’s degree in materials engineering from Auburn University in Alabama and had received several honors including NASA’s Exceptional Achievement Medal and the Presidential Rank Award of Meritorious Executive.